Homestuck/Tropes S-U

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


>LAND OF SUN AND UMBRELLAS

It's always summer in this bright land. The tropes beginning with S, T, and U are sunning themselves at various points on the shore; it's tempting to join them, but with those Imps wandering around you're not likely to get much time to relax.

<== ==>

  • Sacrificial Lion: The Guardians, most of the Trolls.
  • Sailor Earth / Original Flavour:
    • Due to the nature of Sburb's independent sessions of players, it's fairly popular for fanfiction and forum adventures to create their own sessions.
    • It's also popular to create a thirteenth troll themed after the zodiac sign Ophiuchus, which appears in certain astrological models, and it has the bonus of satisfying the Arc Number (four human kids, thirteen trolls). These trolls usually have the initials UU, after uracil, a chemical found in RNA, in keeping with the story's genetic Theme Naming. A U also resembles the semi-official astrological symbol of Ophiuchus.
    • The Sburb-session premise was actually used as an Alternate Reality Game-like explanation for downtime required to upgrade the fandom's forums -- I mean fora software.
    • Many facets of Sburb are easy to duplicate and follow suit on. Just look at the subpage headings.
  • Sampling: Sollux's theme, The La2t Frontiier, features a snippet of Guile's Theme.
  • San Dimas Time: Called "circumstantial simultaneity", which is when two events can happen at different times or timelines and can still be thought of as happening at "the same time".
  • Sanity Has Advantages: Terezi manages to get her revenge on Vriska due to the fact that Vriska is unable to stray from her compulsive behaviors.
  • Save Scumming: Aradia had to do this thousands of times in order for the battle with the Black King to be possible to complete.
  • Say My Name:
    • STRIIIIIIIIDEEERRRRR!!
    • AURTHOOOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUUUR!
    • naaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!
    • IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIMPS!
  • Scanlation: For want of a better way to describe it. Several translation efforts are (slowly) underway on the forums, one of the most prominent being the Japanese translation [dead link].
  • Scarf of Asskicking:
    • Recovered/returned by John's dad to Rose's mom when they're reunited above Skaia
    • Rose a few times, but usually goes with the sash variation, as does Kanaya.
    • Roxy later gains one herself after attempting to appearify Alpha Rose as a child.
  • Scary Dogmatic Aliens: Specifically the Conquistadors variety.
  • Scavenger World: The future Earth inhabited by the Exiles.
  • Scenery Porn/Gorn: Skaia gets quite impressive after a few prototypings, and that's to say nothing of most of the Lands - LOWAS and LOFAF stand out the most.
    • Not to mention any time clouds appear, they are incredibly detailed.
  • Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale: Justified with the Green Sun. Space works differently in the Furthest Ring.
    • Covering thousands of light years in a matter of hours was treated by Doc as being an extreme accomplishment; in reality even the closest known Earthlike planets are all quite a bit more than that away, and if the Empress was on the fringe of her Empire, she would likely have been much closer to at least a hundred thousand light years away.
    • Averted during Cascade, the Act 5 finale. Despite the Human Universe being destroyed by Jack, Earth hangs around for a few minutes simply because the Universe is huge, and none of the Red Miles had reached it yet.
      • In fact, the Red Miles don't hit Earth until the Exiles' timeframe, 413 years later.
  • Schedule Slip:
    • Parodied with the placeholder for the (real) Act 4 finale:

You go downstairs to check the mail for the END OF ACT. In spite of the fact that the red arm-swingy-dealy thing is flipped up, the mailbox is empty! You are going to have to conclude that the position of the red flippy-lever thing is an unreliable gauge for the presence of mail. You really don't know what the point of it is. The parcel you are waiting for is obviously going to be late. You will have to keep checking the mail over the next several days. Hopefully it will not arrive too late, or it may start to become a sore subject with you.

    • That said, Homestuck was originally slated to end on its anniversary, then was pushed back to the following August, then to its second anniversary, and now the official word is that it'll be done when it's done.
    • The original update planned for the anniversary came out almost two months later, but there were plenty of updates in between, so fans didn't mind too much.
    • Inverted: Hussie announced that he was busy and might not be updating as often for a little while. In the next week, he posted eighty pages. Yes, eighty.
    • The 12/16/2010 (the 612th Day Anniversary) update actually came out well into 12/17.
    • The End of Act 5 update was actually pushed back enough that it landed on an important date, 10/25.
  • Schizo-Tech:
    • Battles in Skaia are fought with swords, giant ass chess monstrosities, and battleships in the sky.
    • Mindfang's journal reveals that in the same era sails powered most ships, cybernetic arms also existed.
  • Schrödinger's Gun: If you confront the Denizen before awakening it properly, it will already be awake anyway.
  • Schrödinger's Question: When the planet Alternia is named.
  • Scrappy Mechanic: In-universe, several of the more cumbersome fetch modi can be a pain to work with.
  • Screw Destiny:

CA: anywway a lot of us believve wwere meant to trace the footsteps of those ancestors evven though wwe can nevver knoww em
CA: and on that journey wwe can come across belongings they once had cause wwe wwere hatched to find em and finish their wwork
CA: i kinda think thats wwhy i found the gun in the first place
CA: but noww im forsakin it because fuck i just found a better destiny than my old crappy one wwhich i nevver got any appreciation for anywway

> John: Be the imp
You be the imp and quickly abscond the fuck outta there!!!
This is what weaker adversaries do whenever things get too hot to handle, which is frequently.

  • Screw Yourself: Karkat said that at one point he was convinced he was his own kismesis, though he didn't see how that would be possible.
    • Well, there are the various logs involving his very heated arguments with his past/future selves. But the biology of such a pairing (even by Troll standards) would be highly unlikely.
    • Of course, multitude of time-traveling Daves running around was not unnoticed by fandom. And now there are also two Jades, hugging each other.
    • ...and then when Karkat sees Jade arguing fiercely with her dreamself, he fantasises about her making out with herself. And proceeds to accidentally mistype 'make myself out to be' as 'make out with myself' in the ensuing log. I think it's safe to say at this point that Karkat kinda has issues.
  • Script Breaking: Happens in-universe when Jack uses the Cyborg Bunny on the Black queen
  • Scully Syndrome: Inverted with John following an ominous trail of black ooze.

[[color:red:TG: dude monsters arent real
TG: thats stupid kids stuff for stupid babies]]
EB: maybe. yeah you're right.
[[color:red:TG: what are you an idiot
TG: of course there are monsters in your house

TG: youre in some weird evil monster dimension come on]]

> [I] SS: Go to mspaintadventures.com
You don't know why you are wasting time on this website. It is for little children who poop hard in their baby ass diapers.
Also you don't understand what the hell is going on or who all these characters are. It's all a lot of nonsense.

    • The Alt Text in the banner starts deriding Doc Scratch's narration (particularly the ancestors exposition) here, and on this page's banner compares the narrative styles of Doc Scratch and Andrew Hussie: "Everybody is totally fed up with your condescending, self indulgent narrative style. They all want to go back to my slightly less condescending, slightly more self indulgent style.".
  • Self Fanservice:
    • Inverted with the desert exile characters and Agents of Derse/Prospit. Fan art has a tendency to include specific descriptive details (like claws and carapaces) that aren't shown in the simpler, more cartoonish-style of the actual comic, excluding the Peregrine Mendicant, who is often portrayed in fan art as being much more well-endowed than she is in canon. Spades Slick/Jack Noir's treatment varies by the artist, though the Trolls tend to play the trope straight.
    • All 16 kids and trolls are frequently drawn looking like they're anywhere from 15 to twentysomething instead of being 13 years/six sweeps old.
    • Andrew knows about this, given the kids in the Alpha universe are around 15 - 15.5 years old.
  • Self-Fulfilling Prophecy:
    • Due to the circular nature of time within Paradox Space, pretty much any action done to try and undo some catastrophe will end up being the cause of it.

AA: a decisi0n y0u are ab0ut t0 make will invariably lead t0 every pr0blem we have and will ever face as well as the great und0ing itself

    • Ironically, the one character Genre Savvy enough to take advantage of this is Vriska, of all people.
  • Separated at Birth: Separated at ectobiological creation, anyway - John and Jade are siblings, as are Rose and Dave. The guardians were also created at the same time. Karkat also created 24 wigglers, "our" trolls who exist at the same time and the ancestors, who are scattered across time.
  • Sequence Breaking: Done by several parties with varying degrees of success.
    • Terezi convinces John to skip ahead using a jetpack and kill his Denizen earlier than he should be able to just to screw with the timeline. This did not end well.
    • Jack Noir is more than willing to mess with the regular flow of the game for his own ends. As such, it's wise to make sure he never gets his hands on one of the Queen's prototyping rings. The kids find out about this way too late.
    • Rose is willing to sequence break in order to salvage the kids' session, having destroyed her first gate. In practice, it appears she's not so much sequence breaking as she is going Off the Rails.
    • Equius does this with abandon - rather than building up his house, he merely STRONGJUMPS into the next area right off the bat.
    • It seems the only person ever interested in playing through the whole game without skipping was Tavros, and even he mind-controlled every monster in his path.
  • Serious Business
    • John: Pranks.
    • Dave: Everything is Serious Business in an ironic sort of way, except for irony, which is pure seriosity.
    • John's father: Even his PDA knows what serious business neckties are. And shaving.
    • Peregrine Mendicant: What do you mean the mail isn't awesome?
  • Set Right What Once Went Wrong: When Davesprite travels back in time to prevent John's death.
  • Shades of Conflict: Many, due to the expansiveness of the cast and conflict.
    • Black and Grey Morality: The Troll Ancestors display this, with the exception of The Sufferer. After Hivebent, the Trolls degenerate into this once some of them turn evil.
    • Black and White Morality: The conflict in general boils down to this. This is physically represented in the Chess Battlefield through the armies of Prospit and Derse (though there are exceptions through the Wayward Vagabond and Aimless Renagade, both of which represent Derse).
    • Blue and Orange Morality: The cosmic forces predictably display this (Skaia, Paradox Space, and most notably the Horrorterrors).
    • Evil Versus Evil: The Midnight Crew are malevolent, but are pardoned mainly because they fight the Felt, who are far worse.
    • Grey and Gray Morality: The Trolls fall under this before the end of Hivebent. Many are painted with A Lighter Shade of Grey than some of the others. For example, Tavros is more 'good' than Vriska is.
    • Good Versus Good: The brief conflict between the Exiles occurs mainly due to a misunderstanding, and all of the people involved end up working together shortly thereafter.
    • White and Grey Morality: While the Kids are mostly good, shades of Grey are thrown in as the story progresses. For instance, Rose and Roxy are closer to the 'Grey' side due to the former's overreliance on the Horrorterrors and the latter's underage drinking.
    • In short, the setting can be described as a Morality Kitchen Sink.
  • Shaking Her Hair Loose: In Act 5, Part 2, the Handmaid lets her hair down right before strifing with Doc Scratch. This is because her primary weapons--a pair of wands--doubled as the pins holding her hair bun in place.
  • Shaped Like Itself: Fire is quite notoriously the hottest thing there is.
  • Shifting Sand Land: Earth in the year 2422, and The Land of Sand and Zephyr.
  • Shipper on Deck: Nepeta calls herself The Matchmaker, but she's more speculative than proactive, and simply maintains an illustrated log of ships in which everyone is a Little Black Dress. When her own ship sinks, she dutifully records it.
  • Ship Sinking:
    • The revelation that some of the more popular pairings, ie, John/Jade and Dave/Rose are sort of siblings is quite a bit of a sink. This, of course, did not stop everybody.

"Also I think I ruined a solid year's worth of perfectly good shipping with recent revelations. WHOOPSEE DAISEE" - Andrew Hussie

    • John talks about sinking Dad and Rose's mom's ship. Turns out he was joking.
    • Kanaya x Tavros was teased here (along with Kanaya x Vriska, which was teased earlier), and sunk here only 3 days later with an animated Relationship Diagram (which also confirmed unrequited Kanaya <3 Vriska). Later on, Hussie sank all concupicent heterosexual Kanaya ships by confirming the fanon theory that she's a lesbian in this post.
    • EB: i am not a homosexual. There goes all of John's Ho Yay pairings, including Dave and Karkat.
    • Karkat is, as of the Oct. 20 update, attempting to torpedo any human/troll pairings, for several reasons he has yet to admit to.
    • Also, any hope that Feferi and Eridan would get together was shattered with the 1/22/11 update.
    • The June 16, 2011 update killed off Vriska, sinking a lot of ships, and unsinking Vriska x Tavros. Or it would have if dreambubble Vriska hadn't met beta-timeline dead John.
  • Ship Tease: There's the art that Andrew drew personally and posted in the romantic fanart thread on the forum. It's also been speculated that Andrew intentionally inserts lines like these to get a reaction out of the forum's resident shippers:

TG: i should probably text him soon
TG: see whats up
TG: because
TG: i love him

"You should understand that i understand that I am dealing with forces that if handled recklessly will nullify the ability of intelligent beings in all real and hypothetical planes of existence to give a shit."

    • Virtually refined into an art form by now:

"And the Knight of Blood so embraced the Bard of Rage, and in each other's arms they were aquiver. And with righteous pap and blessed shoosh he did quell his brother's fury. For the Knight looked upon his Bard all acting up and completely losing his shit and he did resolve to calmeth his juggalo ass right the fuck down. And so calmed down his juggalo ass was and would continueth to be for all time. And the Knight in totally settling a murderous clown's ludicrous shit down proper said, Let there be Moirallegiance: and it was so. And between moirails would flow bounteous mirth, and they did hug bumpeth plentifully, and honks of reconciliation echoed far and true into the darkness upon the face of the deep."

    • Jake talks like this a lot; in particular, his idea of profanity tends to vary from old-timey euphemisms to fairly heavy cursing by modern standards, sometimes within the same phrase, resulting in pronouncements like "What the devilfucking dickens?"
  • So Proud of You: Dad seems to say (or typewrite) this to John so often that it's lost most of its meaning to him.
    • Probably because of what John wrote on the walls of his bedroom.
  • Solve the Soup Cans: [S Act 6 Act 3], in loving homage to the adventure game genre. The puzzle involves collecting skulls, realigning mirrors and beams of light, and messing with pedestals that react to weight for no real good reason except that it's a game and the expected thing to do.
  • Soundtrack Dissonance: The simple, quiet bells that went with John's look down the street also accompany a bomb exploding in Jane's face.
    • In the newest flash, the sound is tranquil and soothing in the background of a planet void of life. It gets worse how it still plays when the tablets mention how the residents focused on digging their own graves and died out millions of years ago.
    • And now, Alpha Diamonds Droog puts on the prototyping ring, intercut with (among other things) scenes of Hussie's death and Dirk and Roxy fighting dronebots. All set to the a capella version of I'm A Member Of The Midnight Crew.
  • The Spartan Way: Troll society. More specifically, post-Scratch troll society, due to Doc Scratch's influence.
  • Special Edition Title: When Rose checks up on John in Act 3, the Sburb loading icon has been defaced with Shale Imp slick -- just like John's house.
    • Flashback to Rose and Dan uploading the Beta. The roof of the Sburb house is on fire.
  • Spider Tank: Seen here, presumably in relation to Karkat's Cruxite Artifact.
  • Spirit Advisor: So far, almost every player has protoyped their Kernelsprite with the remains of the deceased, in essence reviving the departed in sprite mode, with all memories of their past life. Using something dead isn't strictly necessary, but Kernelsprites are preternaturally drawn to death.
  • Spoof Aesop: This is exactly why babies should not be allowed to dual-wield flintlock pistols.
  • Spoony Bard: Gamzee, until we find out he is the Bard of Rage, and rightly so.
  • Squee:
    • John suddenly crash-landing his jetpack in Rose's bedroom seems to have been gleefully received by the fans.
    • After months of strange alien love triangles that rarely turn out well, finding out that Karkat and Terezi are simply in love with each other sent waves of joy throughout the fandom.
    • The short return of The Midnight Crew caused a bit of this in some fans.
    • All of the previous examples are topped by this update.
    • Also, the fan reaction to Act 6 so far has been very, well, enthusiastic.
  • Stable Time Loop: A major recurring theme in the comic. Even people with control over time can't do anything more than ensure the timeline goes the way it was supposed to in the first place, because if you do change the timeline, than the totality of existence will slate you for imminent destruction.
    • Vriska makes stable time loops by looking into the future for cool events, and then going back in time to tell people to do things that make the events happen. She wants to be responsible for all of the major events in the story, both good and bad. So yes, it's all her fault, but it was going to happen anyways, and she might as well be responsible for it for bragging rights.
    • Special mention should go to Ectobiology - see My Own Grampa - and the Green Sun. In the case of that latter, it was created by the destruction of two universes. Said destruction was carried out by beings empowered by the Green Sun (directly in one case, through proxy in the other.)
  • Star Power: Those with First Guardian powers get them from the Green Sun, a giant star that's twice the mass of the universe.
  • Star Scraper: Sburb necessitates building one's house higher and higher in order to reach the Gates. Eventually, the houses get ridiculously huge. Jade's house is a good example.
  • Stealth Hi Bye:

KANAYA: (Whats Liquor)
DAVE: (SHIT)
DAVE: (oh god i never get used to how quietly troll vampires sneak around)

  • Stealth Pun:
    • Rose tries to prototype the Kernelsprite with Colonel Sassacre's, which would have made it a Colonelsprite. In addition, everything Rose writes is both ridiculously fancy and in purple text.
    • WV accidentally turns off the capslock key on the terminal, unlocking a capsule. Then he hits tab, opening another capsule of... tab.
    • Halley, the dog, whose genes were used to create Bec, who was launched into Earth on a meteor, or perhaps a comet. As further basis for the Stealth Pun, Halley's owner Colonel Sassacre is an Expy of Mark Twain, who was famously born the month Halley's Comet passed by Earth, and who died the next time it came around.
    • "Taking priority at the moment is shipping two passengers". Take a wild guess what happens within the next few pages.
    • The programming languages, "^CAKE", "~ATH", and "DIS*". Reading the non-alpha characters as their names, we get "carat-cake" (carrot cake), "tilde-ath" ('til death), and dis-asterisk (disaster risk).
    • Fantasy-loving troll Tavros's lusus is a little bull with fairy wings -- a fey-bull.
    • It seems that Diamonds (Droog) made a girl's best friend. Bec, that is.
    • Dave's combat style involves repeatedly looping back in time. His shirt's symbol? A broken record. Furthermore, he does this with time-manipulating turntables...i.e, timetables.
    • The weapon that The Bunny uses on the Queen? Most likely the Royal Deringer, a sword. There is a weapon called a derringer, but it's a small pistol. Thus, the weapon is more appropriately a Royal De-ringer. And it looks like Narsil.
    • Karkat's land, the Land of Pulse and Haze, is full of "bleeding hearts."
    • And Blue-Oni-to-his-Red Sollux has a very cerebral land (Land of Brains and Fire)
    • Nepeta's land (Land of Little Cubes and Tea) doesn't really seem to fit her theme (cats) until you abbreviate it (LOLCAT).
    • When Dave alchemizes the SBaHJifier, he generates some Artifact Grist.
    • Those reaching God-tiers receive hoods.
    • One of Jade's alchemized weapons, the "Girl's Best Friend," costs an awful lot of Diamond grist. Exactly 500,500 diamond grist. 500 in Roman numerals is the letter D. Two D's... Diamonds Droog...
    • Kanaya is a Virgo, and she apparently has "breeding duties." Virgin mother, anyone?
    • Rose's wands are called the Thorns of Oglogoth. Every Rose has its Thorns.
    • After the start of Disk 2, Doc Scratch takes over storytelling duties, which makes him an omniscient narrator.
    • John posits that Jack (the analog to Spades Slick), after slaying the Black King and Queen and subsequently going on a kill-crazy rampage across Skaia, has become the Ace. The Ace of Spades in tarot conversion is the Death card. His dog featues also makes him resemble Anubis, the God of Death.
    • The hammer that Dave stole from Hephaestus, the Fear No Anvil, has time control abilities. In other words, a hammer that stops time. Reorder that a little bit...
    • At some point after Vriska died, Sollux became half-dead, which means for a good stretch of comic, 6 1/2 trolls were dead.
    • The physical embodiment of Cancer smeared Gamzee's blood. With a pap sound.
    • Eridan assaults Sollux with his science wand, ultimately leaving him blind. In other words, he blinded him with science.
    • John is the Heir of Breath.
    • There is type of null session called a void session. In other words, "null and void".
    • Probably unintentional, but Tavros is a paraplegic, meaning he is always sitting down. His sign is Taurus, the bull, and he also has bull horns. So that makes Tavros a... Sitting Bull?
    • Jack being the first guy to think of carving a face on a pumpkin a Jack-o'-lantern.
  • Stock Super Powers: Everyone who plays Sburb gets superpowers.
    • Trolls: All of them play Sgrub and get superpowers, in addition to the few that had psychic powers to begin with. A few alternate timeline iterations of them reached their God Tiers, but the Alpha Timeline has only had Aradia and Vriska reach them as of yet.
  • Stop Helping Me!: Jade attempting to 'clean' Dave's bathroom, and Dave explicitly telling her not to put anything weird in the seizure kernel.
    • > Jade: Put something weird in the seizure kernel.
  • Straw Critic: Gamebro Magazine, if their review of Sburb is any indication.
  • Stupid Statement Dance Mix: Vriska's Nicholas Cage shrine is accompanied by one of these.
    • The full version later makes it onto Vol. 6 of the soundtrack.
  • Stylistic Suck: Dave's truly awful webcomic Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff, which he writes ironically. The (brief) archive can be found here.
    • And Dave's remixes.
    • Coming from a different direction, while Rose has an excellent vocabulary for a 13-year-old, her brand of purple prose is not well suited to writing an emergency walkthrough for Sburb. It's even less well suited to writing fiction.
  • Subliminal Seduction: Betty Crocker slips messages into her company's ads like "Obey," "Cease Reproduction," "Consume," and "Stay Asleep."
  • Suddenly Voiced: The Pesterchum IM service gives us MS Paint Adventures' first use of dialogue. Bizarrely, for a very long time, the comic hardly had any face-to-face dialogue between the characters. The only in-person dialog for several acts was the kids' conversations with their sprites. Once it became necessary for characters to interact more fluidly, sprite-based flash games started showing up, allowing the reader to control one character and have conversation with multiple characters.
  • Super-Deformed: It's hard to see because it's permanent and the protagonists are kids, but when they do something awesome, they're dechibified. Drawing the children in realistic proportions for heroic acts is now called "hero mode". Lampshaded with Aradia, whose first appearances had been in non-chibi form: Render the girl in a more symbolic manner.
    • Doc Scratch does this AGAIN to what turns out to be Aradia's ancestor in the 8/8/11 update: You render yourself in a more symbolic manner this instant.
    • Also played with concerning Gamzee: Andrew drew three blurred out slightly-offscreen visions of Gamzee in Hero Mode before he gave him a Hero Mode panel. It was incredibly silly.
  • Superior Species: Played with and subverted. Karkat in particular lords over the kids claiming the trolls are innately better than them in every way possible. Act 5 reveals that, although their level is technology is much higher than Earth, the younger trolls on Alternia get almost none of it. Their society also seems to be rather behind where people's rights are concerned. Even Karkat hates troll society, until he decides that humans are worse because of something the four protagonists have done.
    • Then again, it's hard not to consider yourself superior to another species when you and your friends created the universe that species resides in.
  • Sure Why Not: Andrew has stated that he gets more ideas from the forum theories than he does from the actual suggestions.

"90% of all "calling it" is really "influencing it" in disguise."

  • Suspiciously Specific Denial: Unlike Clubs, no one's ever gonna find Spades leaving his smut lying in plain view. And even if you did, that copy of TERRIER FANCY MAGAZINE could belong to ANYBODY. No one could prove nothin'."
    • From Karkat.

CG: WHETHER [Terezi] AND I HAVE A THING OR DON'T HAVE A THING, OR TOOK A ROMANTIC HOT AIR BALLOON RIDE SUSPENDED IN A GODDAMN FILIAL PAIL TOGETHER
CG: IT'S DEFINITELY NONE OF YOUR FUCKING EARTH BUSINESS

    • Karkat also denies that he would ever be interested in a blackrom relationship with John. And then proceeds to spend far too long adding that if any troll ever did say anything in a past/future conversation that John might completely misunderstand due to cultural differences, then clearly that troll was having a bad time and not thinking straight.
    • Jane's epic meltdown over Pesterchum when she encourages jake to Take a Gay Option, to his surprise.

[[color:#00d5f2:GG: What, are you expecting me to advocate a more conservative approach?
GG: To tell you to keep being shy and cagey and keep beating around the bush indefinitely??
GG: What would ever give you that idea about me!]]

"Few people realize that John Cusak is a universal constant."

    • Dirk has a bona fide Buster Sword in the kitchen. Dave tries to Capcthalogue it, then concludes that it "might be the only thing in the whole apartment that's a bigger piece of shit than [Dave's] own sword. You put it back behind the microwave where it belongs".
    • Jane's love of MUSTACHIOED FUNNYMEN. ...Except Gallagher. "You've got to draw the fucking line somewhere."
    • Dirk breaking the news that where he comes from, the entire Earth is flooded.

GT: Wow like the epic kevin costner film?
TT: Almost exactly. Especially by the same degree of shittiness.

GA: Sorry I Thought That Was Obvious

    • The text at the bottom of this page makes it clear AH doesn't care as much about "Hero Mode" as his fans do.
    • He even takes potshots at the readers who complained about the dramatic shift in tone and execution of Homestuck and Problem Sleuth.

Since then, the author has been steadily updating PROBLEM SLEUTH 2, which you have been following avidly. You are happy that he stayed in that lane, and stuck with a time-tested formula. If he went in a different direction, you probably would have found it really disappointing.

Doc Scratch: {{[color|white:I refuse to acknowledge this foolish man's self indulgent rubbish. His frivolous charades have no place in this building, or anywhere in this reality.}}]

  • Talking to the Dead:
    • Jade talks about and interacts with her Grandpa as if he were alive and well. He isn't there. Rose also has a brief argument with Jaspers, before concluding that "The last thing [she] need[s] is sass from a dead cat." Also Aradia and anyone who's spoken to her.
    • Inverted with Feferi, who can speak with living dreamers in memory bubbles.
  • Tangled Family Tree: John is, in a way, everyone's paradoxical father. He created the Guardians in a lab, then created himself and his friends from splicing the Guardians' DNA. John and Jade are siblings and their "parents" are actually their grandparents (Nanna and Grandpa) which makes Dad John's half-brother. Bro is Dave's "father," Rose is his sister. In fan theories which try to prove that the kids are not technically related to each other, it works out instead that the kids are half-identical siblings of the Guardians. The relation between Bro and Dave is normalized, but John then becomes his grandmother's brother and his father's uncle.
  • Tarot Motifs: Well, Minor Arcana Motifs: The Midnight Crew, the Trolls' romantic quadrants, and the kids at various points:
    • John: Has a spade shirt when he was little, which causes Karkat to think he's his fated nemesis. This turns out to be foreshadowing since he's stabbed to death by Jack and becomes the first kid to die in the alpha timeline; fortunately he dies in the right place and ascends to the god-tiers.
    • Dave: Has a heart shirt as a kid; fortunately none of the trolls thinks he's their fated beloved, although he does express pity towards them which is "love" to a troll. In spite of his cool-guy attitude he really does love his Bro and cares about his friends.
    • Rose: Has a Punisher-styled Squiddy shirt which resembles a club. In Tarot symbolism the club is a wand, which makes sense as she's a Dark Magical Girl.
    • Jade: Creates a Green Sun gun with a diamond on it. Diamonds is pentacles/coins -- appropriate as she has a lot of esoteric knowledge and a ton of possessions thanks to her grandpa.
  • Tastes Like Friendship: This is how WV, PM, and AR all become friends.
  • Tears of Blood: Troll tears appear to be a diluted version of their blood color. Andrew stated on his Formspring that the tears don't contain blood, it's just that both are full of the same pigment.
  • Teasing Creator:
    • When the creator of something takes time to answer fan questions, is prompted as to why he isn't working, and then takes his reply and INSERTS it into the very work he was questioned about? Better believe it.
    • Andrew also plays with Word of God constantly. For example, "[trolls'] faces are just exotic collections of genitals arranged to look like an angry face to scare away predators, like patterns on butterfly wings."
    • Shipping falls into his realm as well. He plays with ships like a child plays with dominoes, setting them up so he can knock them down.
  • Technicolor Eyes: As has been revealed over time in non-sprite art, the kids' eye colors match their text colors... including Rose with violet and Dave with bright red. Dave and Rose aren't albinos, heroic or otherwise. The trolls, meanwhile, all seem to have black irises and pupils... and yellow sclerae. They are, however, aliens, so...
    • Vriska says that trolls' eyes are gray until they become adults, then they're the same color as their blood and tears.
    • The frog needed to complete the Genesis Frog AKA Bilious Slick has flashing red-blue-green-purple eyes with yellow swirls around the pupils.
    • Roxy and Dirk have hot pink and orange eyes, respectively.
  • Teeth Flying:
    • Fin loses a tooth during the intermission. Importantly, Diamonds sees the tooth on the floor and uses its placement to know where and when to throw a swing that, due to Fin's time powers, hits him several minutes ago, knocking the tooth onto the floor in the first place.
    • Sollux has this happen to him which has the benefit of removing his Lisp.
  • Teenage Wasteland: Alternia, as all adult Trolls are off-planet.
  • Teleport Spam: Bro uses this to kick his ass WITH A DOLL. And again.
  • Temporal Paradox:
    • Paradox space is very peculiar about these. Grandfather paradoxes are rejected by erasing any alteration to the alpha timeline, yet sometimes one is needed in order for the alpha timeline to progress. Conversely, ontological paradoxes are not only allowed, but demanded on at least two occasions for any session to function at all. Trying to understand all the Temporal Paradox nuances involved in just a single game is a daunting task, to say the least. The entire deal between the Kids' and Trolls' sessions takes it Up to Eleven.
    • For obvious reasons, the various Appearafiers are programmed to avoid creating a grandfather paradox when appearafying subjects; they will respond to any such attempt by producing a gelatinous paradox ghost imprint.
  • Tempting Fate: "The downpour of meteors has stopped."
    • Dave's and Davesprite's conversation about how safe their copy of Rose's DNA book is. However, this is Dave we're talking about, and he immediately subverts it once he's finished being ironic as usual.

DAVE: safer than some flintstone vitamins in a bottle
DAVE: keep twisting junior all you get is clicks
DAVE: yeah
DAVE: anyway guess ill go back down and burn that book [1]

  • Tertiary Sexual Characteristics: While all trolls have black lips (as stated in Kanaya's introduction), the boys and Nepeta are depicted with lips the same color as their skin, i.e. grey. This is because all the other girls apparently do care about fashion enough to wear lipstick. Also, only the female trolls are drawn with eyelashes, and many of them wear eye makeup.
  • Tenchi Solution: The nature of Troll reproduction makes this a Foregone Conclusion.
    • Technically not. It's complicated, but the short version is that superficially troll romance resembles the trope, but two of the four different forms of romance are actually meant to prevent the trope from happening (auspictice especially).
    • On the other hand, any given troll will have at minimum 5 people that would be termed lovers, and with the pale quadrants they may have more than one moirail or asupitice. There are 12 trolls and the Kids don't seem particularly interested aside from John with Vriska. Do the math.
  • Theme Naming: There are few names that don't fit some sort of pattern.
    • The kids each have a four-lettered, one-syllable first name and a two-syllable surname: John Egbert, Rose Lalonde, Dave Strider, Jade Harley. Their initial joke names are themed, too: Zoosmell Pooplord for John matches Farmstink Buttlass for Jade, and Flighty Broad for Rose and Insufferable Prick for Dave were name-callings they gave each other.
      • The first trend is continued with the alpha-kids: Jane Crocker, Jake English, Dirk Strider and... Roxy Lalonde?
    • All Pesterchum/Trollian screennames are a combination of two words, the first left lower case and the second capitalized. The kids's chumhandles are ectoBiologist (formerly ghostyTrickster), tentacleTherapist, turntechGodhead, and gardenGnostic. The girls (TT and GG) have like-lettered initials, and the boys (TG and GT) have differing letters, which corresponds to XX (female) and XY (male) chromosomes.
      The twelve trolltags are all Meaningful Names that reveal a Western Zodiac motif. The trolls' real names, first and last, are six letters each, and generally have some meaning related to their associated sign.[2]
      The trolls' screenname initials together with the kids' form all sixteen two-letter combinations of A, C, G, and T, the four DNA nucleobases. Or they did until John changed his chumhandle, which makes ectoBiologist an Odd Name Out. (However, there is significance to ectoBiologist being a reference to a pseudoscience that sounds similar to carcinoGeneticist: like John, Karkat was the one destined to create paradox clones of himself and his friends in the trolls' session.)
    • The Exiles have descriptive Adjective Noun monikers related to wayfaring and/or defection: Wayward Vagabond, Peregrine Mendicant, Aimless Renegade, Windswept Questant. Pre-exiling, their occupations fit their initials. PM was a Parcel Mistress, AR was an Authority Regulator, WQ was the White Queen, and WV was a Warweary Villein.
    • The Midnight Crew members are named after playing card suits: Spades Slick, Diamonds Droog, Hearts Boxcars, Clubs Deuce. The kids' instances of the Agents that make up the MC members in the trolls' session share their initials: the Draconian Dignitary, Hegemonic Brute, Courtyard Droll, and the Sovereign Slayer, a.k.a. Jack Noir.
    • And then there's The Felt, pool-themed adversaries of the Midnight Crew with Numerical Theme Naming. From the bottom up, we have Itchy (from ichi, Japanese for one), Doze (dos, Spanish for two), Trace (tres, Spanish for three), Clover (as in a four leaf clover), Fin (slang for a five-dollar bill), Die (as in a six-sided die), Crowbar (from the crooked shape of a 7), Snowman (from the shape of an 8), Stitch (...in time saves nine), Sawbuck (slang for a ten-dollar bill), Matchsticks (two straight lines, like an 11), Eggs (a dozen eggs), Biscuits (a baker's dozen), Quarters (quatorze, French for fourteen), and Cans (quinze, French for fifteen). Each member's name doubles as a reference to their respective billiard ball number and a Meaningful Name related to their power or appearance. On top of that, they're led by Lord English (named after a sidespin put on the cue ball), and Doc Scratch (named after a foul in pool).
  • Theme Table: A pretty in-depth listing of the similarities between protagonists can be found here. The parallels also have a tendency to spawn numerous fan theories, some a little loopier than others. The truth turns out to be pretty loopy itself, mind.
  • Theme Music Power-Up: Sort of. Although there are too many pieces of music for one to really count as the comic's theme tune, the theme tune it doesn't have is probably Sburban Jungle, a short version of which is played here. The full version is then used in a Theme Music Power-Up here. And then it's remixed into all the other songs that have appeared so far, and some that haven't, and you end up with the magnificent Mind Screw of an update here.
  • They Plotted a Perfectly Good Waste: All of the fan-hatred towards Vriska was completely planned by a certain Mr. Hussie.
  • There Are No Therapists: Partial aversion in that there are no professional therapists, but plenty of amateurs: Rose takes a keen interest in psychology (with the irony that she probably has the most mental issues of any of the Chums) and Kanaya seems to perform a lot of therapy on her fellow trolls (suggesting that Tavros gives his self-esteem a name, arguing with Aradia and Vriska about the nature of fate and free will). John also seems to have a bit of talent for this, at least in terms of diagnosing the problem. Karkat seems to fancy himself a relationship counselor, and manages to accurately psychoanalyze Vriska in between gushing about romance. The fact that the other trolls seek out his counsel when they are in need of romantic advice suggests that he may actually have a deep and useful understanding of the complicated subject; whether this is just part of his personality or if watching romcoms actually taught him useful things about hate and pity remains unknown, and probably up to interpretation.
  • They Just Didn't Care: Vriska's bizarre "Pupa Pan" cosplay runs into its own Fridge Logic when she wonders why he would need to teach a fairy to fly. This is because a) she is confusing Tinkerbell with Wendy and b) She just didn't care.
  • Thick Line Animation: normally present, lost when in Hero Mode.
  • This Is for Emphasis, Bitch

TG: bow down before your new king bitch

    • Spades preparing to Neck Snap Sawbuck. "COUNT SOME SHEEP BITCH"
  • This Is Sparta:
  • Those Two Guys: Eridan and Feferi, Nepeta and Equius, and Aradia and Sollux scarcely appear without each other. Tavros is "That One Guy" by himself, while Gamzee is an Ascended Extra.
  • Throw the Dog a Bone: After a long history of being a Killer Game Master and a general antagonist to Tavros, Vriska finally does something nice for him: she sends him a code for rocket shoes so he can alchemize himself a cool rocket chair and fly around instead of being confined to a wheelchair and dealing with not being able to climb stairs. Whether or not she'd have done that if not for Kanaya's intervention is questionable.
  • Throwing the Distraction: Subverted when the WV throws a Tab can at the AR. The transparency of the ruse pisses him off.
  • Time Compression Montage: Almost all the music flashes efficiently pack a lot story into a few minutes, in contrast to the frequent Walls Of Text.
  • Time Dilation: When John and Jade move at near-lightspeed, five milliseconds from an outside perspective become like three years for them.
  • Time Skip: The Wayward Vagabond interludes take place several years (but not many) after the the meteors strike. According to the Appearifier, the current date is 2422-04-13. Exactly 413 years after the start of the comic.
    Admittedly, from a certain perspective (that of the exiles themselves) it is quite likely that it has only been only a few years, and as we watch the gap between the past and present of those segments has shrunk considerably.
  • Time Travel for Fun and Profit: Dave has pulled off one of these with the LOHAC Stock Exchange. Rather Spectacularly.
  • Time Travel Tense Trouble:
    • You can never take tense for granted when dealing with The Felt.
    • "It begins to dawn on you that everything you are about to do may prove to have been a colossal waste of time."
    • "this private b0ard will and has already served as a l0g 0f past events f0r future selves t0 rec0rd and a guide 0f future events f0r past selves t0 f0ll0w"
      "i d0nt kn0w which half 0f its r0le has been 0r will be m0re imp0rtant"
    • "i cant wait for future you to future kiss my ass!"
      "i also cant wait for past you to past drop dead and go to hell, PAST TENSE!!!!!!!! "
      "when are those things going to happen?? or will have already past/future happened?????"
  • Timey-Wimey Ball:
    • The time-travel shenanigans caused by The Felt's abilities seem to adhere to the Rule of Funny. Even Spades has given up trying to figure it out completely. The official name for everything related to time travel in the wiki is "Weird Time Shit.
    • John actually calls himself "the timey-wimey messenger" when forwarding a message to a troll from the future.
    • Also, discussed here in the main story, during the Bad Future Rose and Dave have landed themselves in:

TG: the thing with time travel is
TG: you cant overthink it
TG: just roll with it and see what happens
TG: and above all try not to do anything retarded

  • Title Drop:
    • Almost.
    • Another almost when you check the Cruxtruder here.
    • Finally done in the album Mobius Trip and Hadron Kaleido, which features the song Chain of Prospit with the line "Feeling like you're Homestuck" (emphasis in the song). Said song is basically made of a bunch of shout outs to Acts 1 and 2. However it is not exactly canon.
    • As of Jane's introduction, she is FORBIDDEN FROM LEAVING THE HOUSE.
  • Took a Level in Badass: Almost everyone. Many, many times. Those who haven't in earlier acts do in the future. The comic keeps going Beyond the Impossible.
  • Took a Level in Jerkass: It's revealed this happened to the entire troll race.
  • Totally Radical: GameBro magazine oozes this trope.

AR: You are ripping up so many hellaceous shreds this fierceshitty biznasty is getting so deliriously rudebrazen it... Ok you lost the handle on that sentence.

  • The Treachery of Images: Alpha Jack Noir ends up locked in a Prospitian jail cell. (Un)fortunately, there's a (crude drawing of a) key right on the floor in front of him.
  • Triang Relations: Comes up fairly often, especially with the trolls. Perhaps the "cleanest" example would be Karkat-Terezi-Nepeta; Karkat and Terezi may or may not have A Thing, Nepeta has a (probably one-sided) crush on Karkat, and Terezi and Nepeta have RP'd "yiffing" sessions (though Terezi says they're ironic for her. Hmm...) Then, to make things even more confusing, as soon as Karkat enters the dream bubble with his per-scratch ancestors, he totally ignores them, while going on and on about how he just wants to see Nepeta.
  • Transformation Trinket: The Queens' rings and Kings' scepters. They only work for Agents though, as they have no effect on humans.
  • Troll: Both literal trolls, and the Author himself.

Why do you take such apparent delight in teasing your fanbase?
Andrew: Cause it's funny!

> Go Back

<== ==>

  1. ↑ It's just too bad that Draconian Dignitary beat him to it.
  2. ↑ The Zoosmell/Farmstink pattern was adhered to when it came time to name the trolls' planet and carcinoGeneticist; the player attempted to name them Turdodor Fuckball and Bulgereek Nookstain. Bulgereek I mean Karkat lashed out and convinced the player to knock it off from then on.
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